Descendants
by StealMyShow
Summary: What if Merope Gaunt didn't die after giving birth to Tom (later known as Voldemort)? What if someone saved her life? What if she fell in love with someone who loved her back? What if she had another chance at family? An idea I thought of while rereading chapter ten of Half-Blood Prince. Oneshot.


Merope Gaunt was lying on the ground in an alley in pain.

No one was around.

* * *

Almost an hour later, someone walked by the alley. It was a man about her age. He saw her struggling to breathe and ran to her.

"Are you okay?" he asked frantically.

She was gasping for breath, moments away from death, but she still managed to choke out one word. "Hospital."

He picked her up and apparated to the emergency room of St. Mungo's.

"How can I help you?" a nearby healer asked.

"She's dying and struggling to breathe. I just found her on the ground in an alleyway. Please try to save her."

"Yes, of course. Just put her here," she said, pointing to an empty bed next to him. As he set her down, the other healers came to her side. "Thank you for taking her here. Our best healers are helping her right now. If you could go to the waiting room, then we can tell you what's wrong with her and how long the wait will be."

"Thank you," he replied as he turned to go.

Despite the brightly colored wallpaper and carpet, the waiting room looked very dreary. Actually, anything can look dreary if you've just seen someone on the verge of death.

* * *

About twenty minutes later, the healer that he first met walked up to him in the waiting room.

"Will she be okay?" he asked.

"Yes, she will be fine after another day or two at the hospital. We were able to revive her, and she told us her story. Her name is Merope Gaunt. Shortly before you arrived to help her, she gave birth to a son and gave him to a muggle orphanage nearby. Besides her son, she has no family or friends that she can contact."

"Doesn't the child have a father, though?"

"She said that he left a few months ago. She also said that she is currently homeless."

"Anything else?"

"She's been moved from the emergency room to room 114 on the first floor. You can visit her any time you'd like."

"Thank you."

As the healer walked away, he thought about what to do. Either he could leave her or help her. It didn't sound like she could take care of herself, but on the other hand, he knew almost nothing about her.

He thought about it for a moment before deciding that he would take care of her until she could live on her own. Hopefully it wouldn't be too long. He could barely afford to take care of himself, let alone another person, but he decided that it was the right thing to do.

* * *

Up in room 114, Merope heard the door opening. The other three patients in that room were asleep. Merope, still very weak and tired, lifted her head up and saw that it was the man who took her there. He walked up to her bed and kneeled next to it to be at eye level with her.

"Hi, Merope," he said. "The healer told me everything that you told her. My name is Richard, and once the hospital releases you, I will take care of you until you're ready to live on your own."

Merope smiled. "Thank you."

* * *

A few days later, she was dismissed from St. Mungo's, and he took her to his small flat in on the outskirts of London.

"It's not much," he said, "but it's my home."

"I think it's nice," she said.

"There's one bedroom, but you can have the extra bed in the living room."

"That's perfectly fine."

They left the entrance hallway and turned into the small living room, where a twin bed was pushed against the wall. The kitchen table was against the opposite wall, two chairs next to it. The carpet and walls were quite outdated, but Merope would certainly rather be here than with her family in that run-down cottage in the woods.

"I haven't mentioned this before," said Merope," but I'm a Squib." She waited for a harsh reaction. She would've told him earlier if she weren't so afraid of what he'd think. Whenever a witch or wizard found out about her lack of magic, they got angry or kicked her out or demoted her to a life of doing chores as a slave. That's what her father did.

Surprisingly, Richard didn't seem angry. He didn't care how magical she was. She needed help, and he was willing to give it.

"That's nothing to be ashamed of," he said. "I'm sure that I can still help you find a job and a place to live, even if you're not particularly magical."

"Really?"

"Yes, of course!"

"But I want a job in the wizard world."

"There are many jobs that don't require magic. You just have to work near magic."

Merope was relieved. This type of help and acceptance was more than what she asked for, but she certainly wouldn't turn it down.

"Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. Make yourself at home," Richard said as he retreated to the kitchen to heat up some leftovers.

Merope sat down on the bed and looked around her. It was small, but it was nice. Finally, for the first time in her life, she felt at home.

* * *

After about three months, Merope's health was completely back to normal, and she had managed to find a job sorting papers at the Ministry. It wasn't much, but she made enough money to have a place of her own. Despite her achievements, they decided to continue living together and split the rent between them.

After two more months, they moved into a bigger flat with two separate bedrooms so that Merope didn't have to sleep in the living room.

About a week after that, Richard asked Merope to be his girlfriend. She very happily answered, "Yes!"

After six more months, Richard proposed, and she said, "Yes!" with even more excitement than the previous question.

They got married exactly a month later.

Ten months after their wedding, they had a baby boy.

Merope had to quit her job to take care of the new baby, and their lives continued normally for two months.

Then the next week moved quickly. Merope's brother and father were released from Azkaban, and she told Richard about it. The two ex-convicts announced in the Daily Prophet that they wanted revenge on Merope for abandoning them. This scared Richard.

One day, when Merope came back from the store around 3 PM, Richard and their son weren't there. All that was left was a note.

_Merope, my dear, I'm very sorry, but we can't live together anymore. The threat of your family members finding us is too high. I would be able to live with it, but I can't take the chance with a baby in the family, and I can't bear the thought of him being raised by someone else, so I've taken him with me. I've talked to the building manager, and we're supposed leave the flat by 6 this evening. Please be gone by then. I found a new place far from here. Don't try to find me._

_All my love,_

_Richard_

This broke her heart. She had no job and couldn't find one without his help. The only reason the Ministry hired her was because Richard's good friend who worked there needed an assistant to sort papers. No wizard wanted to hire a Squib, and no muggle wanted to hire someone with no work experience (she couldn't tell muggles about any magic-related jobs).

Ultimately, she was left homeless on the streets of London.

During a particularly harsh winter less than a year later, her father found her in an alley and, giving her no time to explain, killed her on the spot.

* * *

_Sixty-eight years later._

Ron and Harry were in the forest. The locket had been opened. Ron was clutching the Gryffindor sword in his hand and was trembling.

"Just kill it, Ron!" Harry yelled as the locket showed Ron exactly what he didn't want to see. "What are you waiting for? Just do it!"

Ron, who had finally mustered up enough confidence in himself, raised the sword of Gryffindor and swung it down, hitting the locket. Just as this happened, Ron fell on the ground and fainted, the sword falling on the ground near him.

"Ron!" Harry yelled, crouching next to his friend. "Ron, are you okay?" He grabbed Ron's shoulders and shook him. He slowly opened his eyes but sat up quickly. He grabbed the sword in one hand and stood up. "Ron?" asked Harry.

"You know how you knew stuff about You-Know-Who without actually seeing it because it's in your head? Well, now I believe you. I don't know how much I doubted you before, but I believe you now," said Ron.

"What's this about?" Harry asked, bewildered.

"We need to go to the Burrow. Now."

"What are y-"

"Now."

They found Hermione as quickly as they could and apparated back to the Burrow. Molly was making supper in the kitchen.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Where's Dad?" Ron asked. "I need to talk to him."

"In the living room."

Once they got there, Ron quickly explained what horcruxes are and why they need to be destroyed. Then he continued with what he really needed to ask. "Who are our ancestors?"

"What?" Arthur asked, confused.

"When I destroyed the horcrux, I fainted, and I had this weird vision that explained to me who my ancestors are. I don't know why, but it seemed real. I need to know whether it's real or not. I need to hear it from someone else."

"I still don't understand."

"Your father was Septimus, and his father was Richard. I always knew that, but I thought that his mother was Catherine. He was just raised by Catherine because Richard got remarried. The vision told me that his real mother was Merope Gaunt, who is also the mother of You-Know-Who. That means that You-Know-Who is my… great half-uncle."

Everyone just stared at him.

"That's what the vision said." Ron looked around the room.

Another awkward pause.

Then he turned back to his father. "Did you know about this?"

Arthur paused for a moment before replying. "Yes, I did. Your mother also knows. I didn't tell any of you because I didn't want to scare anyone."

Ron was getting angry, but he tried to hide it because he realized that his father just wanted to keep them safe.

"Well," said Harry, breaking the awkward silence, "it makes sense why Ginny was able to open the Chamber of Secrets. Even though she's not a parseltongue, she's still an heir of Slytherin. If the diary chose someone else, I don't know if the Chamber would've been opened."

"It also explains why it was hard for me to kill the locket," said Ron. "Since I'm related to You-Know-Who, it was hard for me to destroy it because there was a part of him inside both of us."

"That's also why you had the vision," said Hermione. "The combination of being related to him and destroying the locket at the same time must've gotten inside your head."

"I just have one question," said Ron, who was taking the news of being related to Voldemort surprisingly well. "Why are we all in Gryffindor?"

"That must've come from Richard's side of the family," said Harry, who was trying to be helpful despite the fact that he knew almost nothing about Ron's extended family.

"Sometimes," said Arthur, putting a hand on Ron's shoulder, "it doesn't matter who you're related to, even if it _is_ Salazar Slytherin, because when you have a certain trait, the Sorting Hat can't ignore it, and, just like it was demonstrated today with the locket, you, my son, are brave."


End file.
